Bad Thing

Bad Thing

(jargon)

(From the 1930 Sellar & Yeatman parody "1066 And All
That") Something that can't possibly result in improvement of
the subject. This term is always capitalised, as in
"Replacing all of the 9600-baud modems with bicycle couriers
would be a Bad Thing".

British correspondents confirm that Bad Thing and Good Thing (and probably therefore Right Thing and Wrong Thing) come from the book referenced in the etymology, which
discusses rulers who were Good Kings but Bad Things. This has
apparently created a mainstream idiom on the British side of
the pond.

In an unselfish aspect, I am sorry that the thing is dropped, because it would have been a bad thing for me in a worldly point of view; in a selfish aspect, I am glad that the thing has dropped, because it would have been a bad thing for me in a worldly point of view-- it is hardly necessary to say I could have gained nothing by it.

"What DID you do, you naughty, bad thing? Why in the world, to worry us so--and take our thoughts off, too, don't you know?-- did you desert us at the very door?" I couldn't meet such questions nor, as they asked them, their false little lovely eyes; yet it was all so exactly what I should have to meet that, as the prospect grew sharp to me, I at last let myself go.

One of his comrades, talking of women, began chaffing Rostov, saying that he was more wily than any of them and that it would not be a bad thing if he introduced to them the pretty Polish girl he had saved.

"Charles may say what he pleases," cried Mary to Anne, as soon as he was out of the room, "but it would be shocking to have Henrietta marry Charles Hayter; a very bad thing for her, and still worse for me; and therefore it is very much to be wished that Captain Wentworth may soon put him quite out of her head, and I have very little doubt that he has.

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